Derek Huether has a lot of things going for him that make him a legitimate success story in the field of project management. He’s man behind one of the most popular project management blogs in the world; the man synonymous with the Critical Path; a certified PMP®; a proud signatory of the Agile Manifesto; and someone with a platform of achievement and social media awareness that has made him one of the most respected project managers in the competitive Greater Washington D.C. area.
Our recent discussion with Derek bore out an intriguing revelation: those “oh so crucial” soft skills had manifested themselves before project management had ever entered his mind as a career possibility.
Here's a look at one of the more popular pages on the Critical Path blog - Derek's collection of free, downloadable templates for the public.
DS: How exactly did you end up in project management? Tell us about an event, development or crossroads in your working life that sparked your move to project management?
DH: The single critical event that took me down my path was dealing with a stakeholder on my inaugural project. I wasn’t officially wearing a PM hat at the time. Rather, I was the QA Manager for a small application development company. The president of the company saw I was having success with the internal people I interacted with. None of the peoples could deal with this one particular stakeholder. The project was in jeopardy. How bad was this stakeholder? Let’s say you don’t have agreement on the initial design of an application screen. The one piece of feedback you get is “I don’t like that”. Your response is, “Could you please be more specific?” The stakeholder response is “I don’t know. I know that I don’t like what I see but I’ll know what I like when I see it.” Sounds a little like the American comic strip (Dilbert) written and drawn by Scott Adams. Unfortunately it was the reality…
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